As the saying goes, “Everything’s bigger in Texas.”

That definitely applies to what the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, near, Dallas, has planned for its FallNationals.

The FallNationals are scheduled for Oct. 7-10, but that’s only part of the festivities that will be taking place at the facility during the “Stampede of Speed.

The track recently announced a huge expansion and rebranding of the NHRA Texas FallNationals.

“This is something the sport needs right now,” Carter said. “We have been working with some folks in the state of Texas, the state of Texas has a program, and we have kind of partnered with them to drive out-of-state tourism to the state of Texas in states like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

“We want this event to have a Super Bowl feel. We will have shopping every day and some type of racing going on every day and some other stuff.”

The “Stampede of Speed” will begin with a special opening ceremony during the 5th annual Night Lights sky-lantern festival on Saturday, Oct. 2, and will conclude with the NHRA Texas FallNationals, Oct. 7-10. 

A full week of events, conferences, and activities will highlight the economic benefit of motorsports in Texas as well as provide a wide variety of entertainment options for sports fans from across the state and around the country.

“We have four five different races (scheduled), and eight different concerts,” Carter said. “We’re going to have a huge display of Top Fuel cars, and a jumbotron showing racing to introduce those people who are not drag racing fans to what we are going to do during the (Stampede of Speed) and we will have booths set-up where people can buy their tickets for the (FallNationals).

“One night, we are going to have the country musical festival, with Texas country music to get the younger generation out here with the same kind of promotions going on about the (FallNationals) and let people know they can come out here next week and see this for real and see these cars go over 300 mph.”

Carter said the Texas Motorplex will make history when it has drivers in NHRA’s Pro classes test Oct. 6.

“NHRA has never done that before and our conservation with them was every form of motorsports out there, their drivers test the week of the race, so they going to allow us to do that,” Carter said. “There’s going to be something for everybody. The big deal for us is we want to draw people into town. Our campgrounds our going to open up Sunday morning (Oct. 3).  We want to build this event so we can make it successful and continue to do it.

We have business conferences going on with businesses in the surrounding area to show them how they can get involved and attract these race fans into their businesses and restaurants. We feel like we are a good partner with the community and with this event we can be an event better partner to the community.”

The “Stampede of Speed” is something Carter wants to be annual event at the NHRA national event in the fall at the Texas Motorplex.

“Once we do it and God-willing everything works out like it is supposed to, this will be an every-year deal,” he said. “We are spending a ton of money here on the facility. We have about $3 million right now on our suite towers and restrooms and stuff like that, like in food court in the pit area, our media center, pretty much all of structures are getting completely updated and renovated. We have a five-year plan that we will make an announcement on at the FallNationals about a lot of other projects we have scheduled for the facility.”

Carter relishes in welcoming fans to the Texas Motorplex to the “Stampede of Speed.”

“When we look back at the last year, we were the first event to have fans and we worked with the governor’s office to allow all (Texas) motorsports venues to have 20 percent capacity,” Carter said. “We had a record year, not only for attendance, but dollar-wise. We had the largest Funny Car race here in history this year. We had the first and largest festival back since COVID, when we had about 70,000 people here for a stadium concert. We have been doing good things and it all kind of leads to this event the “Stampede of Speed.” This is another step on the ladder for us.”

According to Carter, the capacity of the Texas Motorplex is just north of 100,000.

“We saw people who were looking for something to do when were granted 20 percent capacity at our events and we didn’t have to compete with the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks or the Dallas Stars. We were still seeing a tremendous growth in our events week-to-week, and it never slowed down. Once we got them (people) coming, they keep coming back. We have been lucky.”